


ashes

by pockettreatpete



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: 'longest way round' made me do it, Dream Sequence, LWR 'verse, M/M, it's just a dream i promise, otp: wait that's my word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 09:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21610462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pockettreatpete/pseuds/pockettreatpete
Summary: Nightmares can be revealing. Post-script to chapter 14 of 'Longest Way Round'.
Relationships: Chasten Buttigieg/Peter Buttigieg
Comments: 13
Kudos: 27





	ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Longest Way Round](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20633912) by [Chastened](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chastened/pseuds/Chastened). 

> In the latest chapter of ‘Longest Way Round’, Pete tells Chasten he has nightmares all the time. So what are his like? Out of a truly demented conversation on Twitter, this has arisen. Thank you, chastened, for letting me play in your sandbox and indulging my whims. Thanks NeverJustBusiness for a thorough beta that made it better.

**January 20, 2021: South Bend, Indiana**

The wind howled sourly around the corner when he got out of the car. It bit right through him but he pulled his coat tightly around himself anyway as he hurried towards the cathedral. It was going to rain, or sleet, or snow, or some ungodly combination of all three, before the day was done. 

Coming inside should have felt like a relief, a refuge from the weather if nothing else, but the church wasn’t warm and homey the way it used to be. Maybe it was the occasion, or maybe, he thought bitterly, St. James – and South Bend – wasn’t home anymore. 

The casket was waiting in one of the anterooms. He bit the inside of his cheek and focused on holding in the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d cried more in the past eight months than in his entire life before it, and the tears didn’t ever seem to run out. He rested a hand on the casket, and thought about the last time he’d been in this situation, almost exactly two years before. Dad then, Mom now. And Pete, in the end, was left alone. 

A quick knock on the door frame pulled him from his dark reverie and he turned towards the sound. Reverend Brian smiled gently and went in for a hug. Pete pulled away as soon as humanly possible. 

“How are you feeling?” 

There was no way to answer that like a human being, so he shook his head a little and Brian, bless him, understood. 

It had never occurred to him before exactly how hard it would be to carry his mother’s casket into the church. He kept his eyes firmly trained on the pallet, and focused on walking in pace with his cousins. By the time he could sink into his seat he was dizzy with the gravity of it all, sweaty and nauseous. He wished with every fibre of his being that the shoulder next to his had been suit-clad and solid so he could lean against it, and that the neck attached to it would smell like soap from Target, comforting and familiar. His aunt was a lovely woman but not the solace he needed so urgently. 

He tried to focus, tried to hear the reverend’s words, but it all flew by in a daze until the word “eulogy”. He stood, slid his notes out of his pocket, and walked to the reading desk. He put his notes down and looked out over the packed church. Somewhere around the eighth row on the right-hand side, his gaze froze. _Chasten_. Next to him, a dark-haired man around his own age, that he’d only ever seen in Instagram photos. The boyfrie-- Fiancé. Next to him, Sherri and Terry. Pete wrested his eyes away, swallowed, cleared his throat. 

“My mother,” he began, “was a remarkable woman...” 

//

The crowd in the church hall had begun to thin out before Pete realized Chasten was there, standing in the corner opposite him, deep in conversation with Reverend Brian. Pete couldn’t tear his eyes away and finally, Chasten looked over. They’d always been able to carry out whole conversations just with looks, but absence had muddled it all. He inclined his head towards the door and Chasten nodded curtly. They met in the aisle of the abandoned cathedral.

“You came,” Pete said feebly. 

“Of course I came. I loved Anne.” 

He was cold, detached, and Pete bit back an emotional retort. He couldn’t keep himself from voicing the one thought that had dominated his mind for much of the afternoon.

“You brought a date. To my mother’s funeral.”

“A date? He’s my fiancé, we’re living together and we’re expecting a child. You know all this. Do you expect me to not take him with me?” Chasten frowned in disbelief.

“To you ex-mother-in-law’s funeral? Yes.” 

Chasten sighed. “I see you’re still wearing the watch,” he said. 

Pete swallowed. “Yeah.” 

“Why?” Chasten looked genuinely curious. 

“To remind me of my failures,” Pete said, half-hoping to make Chasten smile and tell him to get over himself. 

“I wouldn’t think you’d need reminding. They’re pretty massive,” Chasten replied flatly, and Pete felt long-buried anger flame up inside him.

“I find it interesting,” he said, cold fury blossoming so fiercely so quickly he had trouble containing it, “that you lay all the blame on me.” 

“I didn’t come here to have this fight again, Peter.” 

“Tell me which fight you came here to have, we can have it.” He knew he was being petty, but he couldn’t stop himself. 

“I came to bury my mother-in-law. And with her, my last tie to this place,” Chasten said, looking around the room where they were married two and a half years earlier. 

“Did almost five years together really not mean anything to you?” 

Where Pete’s anger was cold and precise, Chasten’s was wildfire. He gaped at Pete’s question.

“It meant _everything_ to me! We were going to change the world. We were going to win. And then you choked.”

“I did. But we were all to blame. Our hubris choked all of us.” 

“Warren could’ve beaten Trump. We are the reason she didn’t have that chance. _You_ are the reason she didn’t have that chance.”

“I know.”

“I can’t even look at you. I can’t believe you couldn’t do it,” Chasten said, warming to the subject, and Pete had to steel himself. He’d heard this before, more than once, the previous spring. “You said you were up to it. You made sure I was up to it. And then you fucking choked. What the fuck does it help anyone that we won Iowa and New Hampshire, when you couldn’t get a fucking grip on South Carolina _or_ Nevada? Fucking _Nevada_, Peter. Our whole strategy was _made_ for caucus states and you still choked! You rolled out the red carpet for Biden, and we _knew_ he couldn’t win. You and I and Lis and Mike, but you, most of all you, are the reason that _fucking rapist_ was sworn in for a second term three hours ago.”

“I know,” Pete repeated. He could see Chasten wanted to say something more, and cut him off. “Chasten. I miss you.”

The air went out of Chasten at that. He pressed his lips together. “I don’t miss you,” he said quietly, as if admitting to a secret.

He turned around to leave, then half-turned back. 

“You need to take off that watch. It’s pathetic,” he said. 

“Chasten, please,” Pete said. 

He wasn’t sure what he meant to ask, but it didn’t matter. Chasten’s face curled into a mocking expression. 

“I can’t believe you thought I loved you, that I could ever love you. Hell, that _anyone_ could. Look at you. You think you’ve earned _anything_? There’s no love left for fourth place, Peter, but you knew that. Which made this, and you, all the more disappointing.”

Pete wanted to say something, anything, but it was stuck in his throat, and Chasten kept talking.

“What good is all that inane Best Little Boy shit if you aren’t the best? I put up with it for five _very_ long years, because I figured I’d be able to deal with your inability to function like a person so much better from the East Wing, but nope, you fucked up the one thing I had you around for. God knows the fucking wasn’t it.” 

He couldn’t breathe. Chasten looked at him like he was expecting him to say something, but the air was trapped in his lungs like he was drowning. The disappointment on Chasten’s face gouged what was left of him.

“Go home, Peter. Go back to your books. They can’t replace a soul, but you can try anyway.” 

//

His cheeks were wet and his heart pounding when he jolted to consciousness. A dream. It was all a dream. He turned over and checked the time on his phone. 3:30 am. He desperately wanted to call Chasten, hear his husband’s voice and be reassured, into his bones, that the dream was just a dream, but even on the West Coast, if that was even where Chasten was at the moment, it was past midnight. 

He wiped his eyes, turned his pillow over from the tear-stained side, and pulled up his Youtube playlist of Chasten’s appearances. 

He fell back asleep with his husband’s voice in his ear professing to how Chasten loved him.


End file.
